What an amazing set of circumstances put me back together with my old and lost friend Marty Anderson. Unbelievably, we had been out of touch since the mid 70's while living within a couple of miles from each other for the last twenty years.
My re-association with Marty all started with an email in late July from an old high school classmate after a class reunion that I had missed. Emails led to phone calls and I learned from classmate Tim Ryan that Marty had lost both of his legs due to a series of illness after three long years of surgeries and stays at various hospitals and care facilities.
Marty was currently well recovered but stuck in the bureaucratic LA County red tape at a convalescent home in downtown Los Angeles and Tim was his only local advocate. All other family was gone except for his one sister Shari living in Oregon. Tim and Shari have been Marty's main supporters through the last three tough years.
All the while, Marty had continued to pay rent on his little house in Lomita, CA. Even though the place was a mess after going unoccupied for three years, the common objective was move Marty home to be self-sufficient again. Fate seemed to step in while I was surfing through
www.DarynKagan.com and found the story about www.WhatFriendsDo.com. What a perfect fit for what we wanted to accomplish. We needed to organize a team, develop a plan, assign tasks, raise funds and communicate, communicate, communicate.
Long story short, we managed to raise over $3,400 in donations of cash and labor and were able to repair, paint and clean the interior of Marty's two bedroom home before finally managing to obtain Marty's release. His long overdue homecoming party with food, friends and neighbors finally became a reality on October 15th.
It's been almost three weeks now since Marty's homecoming, a true life changing event.
He continues to enjoy his new/old home and its freedoms while receiving tremendous support from his team of friends and neighbors. Check out Marty's Homecoming saga at
http://www.whatfriendsdo.com/Marty_Anderson/team/